November 5, 2010

He knows exactly how smart he is. ... He knows how perceptive he is. He knows what a good reader of people he is. And he knows that he has the ability — the extraordinary, uncanny ability — to take a thousand different perspectives, digest them and make sense out of them...

So this "sense" you refer to.... it's the end result of a digestive process?

... and I think that he has never really been challenged intellectually. ... So, what I sensed in him was not just a restless spirit but somebody with such extraordinary talents that had to be really taxed in order for him to be happy. ... He’s been bored to death his whole life. He’s just too talented to do what ordinary people do.

Oh, my lord. This is the way the people have buttered him up his whole life, I'm afraid. How will he deal with the rude affront he received last Tuesday? Is there an Obama that fits the changed circumstances or was his entire being formed through relationships with sycophants?

"Don't you love how we can say that to each other and know we're not being conceited?""Oh, I know. No, we're just being honest."

From Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, but I imagine Obama's inner circle functions much the same way. Can't wait for the falling out: "Barack always thought he was the Mary and I was the Rhoda. But no... I'm the Mary. I'M THE MARY!"

And I've never met a brilliant person who was ever bored. Boredom is the product of a mediocre and ill-formed mind which requires constant external stimulus to keep it occupied, much like a spoiled, stunted child.

In Turkey it was ironic after their referendum one of the political leaders felt that a good check on the new government (that is greatly joined with the force of fundamentalist religion) would be a free press.

When that free press lacks credibility he can kiss those lofty hopes goodbye.

The fundamentalist religion that he is talking about which legitimizes and glorifies the use of the sword had for a long time and for the great benefit and accelerated development of Turkey been checked by the secular sword of Turkey's Ataturk and his adherents the Turkish military.

The one time I met Bill Clinton (I'll spare you most of the details) , it was at a Golf Course and I was in a group that had a friend of his. When I was introduced to him and shook his hand he instantly smiled at me as though he knew everything about me, as though we were old friends. I'd heard he had that talent.

It's said that a few people can recognize the 2,000+ different expressions that the human face can make, while most of us get a couple of hundred. Clinton is one of the 2,000 + guys.

Chickelit: I got you covered. But how about this: "For many are deceived by their own vain opinion, and an evil suspicion hath overthrown their judgment." Or Tartuffe could apply, if Valerie is planning to supplant Obama someday.

I don't think Michelle Obama is a sycophant. I get the feeling she tries to keep his ego in check. But then she's got issues of her own. Although maybe that's understandable if this is what she's had to put up with in their marriage.

The AARP’s health insurance costs are going up next year due to rapidly rising medical costs that are partly fueled by the health overhaul, the AP is reporting.

Premiums for the group’s employees will rise by 8% to 13% next year, the story says. The association is changing co-pays and deductibles to avoid a 40% tax on high-cost health plans that goes into effect in 2018, according to the AP. About 4,500 people are covered by the group’s plans.

The one time I met Bill Clinton (I'll spare you most of the details) , it was at a Golf Course and I was in a group that had a friend of his. When I was introduced to him and shook his hand he instantly smiled at me as though he knew everything about me, as though we were old friends. I'd heard he had that talent.

Yes, he has that talent. I've seen it in person also. Back in 1996, an old-hand Republican attorney told a table of people at a law firm recruiting event I was at that Clinton would win the election handily (something that a lot of the people at that table didn't want to hear) for two reasons: (a) you can't beat something with nothing (sorry, Bob Dole) and (b) if Clinton showed up at that event, he could go to every table and make everyone at each table feel like they just made a new friend.

Obama better hope (a) is in effect for 2012, and from what I've seen, it probably is.

even if everything Jarrett said were true - he STILL was and is unqualified for the office he now holds - he had achieved nothing save being elected. He had not earned his stripes.

He is bolstered by the kind of people for whom winning is all. Doing the job does not matter to them. Experience does not matter. The economy, the safety of the nation, the people do not matter to them. It's - can they sell this guy to the public and win. And win they did, by whatever means necessary.

For example, he won't be looking for a teaching gig (and a home w/ plastic counters) in Madison. And, I'm sure that such a life is great--but it's still a notch or two behind where BHO is, and where he'll be for the rest of his life.

Taking petty shots at the guy says a lot more about the shooter, than it does about the out of range target.

There is no way in the world that he would be where he is were he not black. He knows this to his marrow, his very cells scream it. He is a very tortured person, very defensive, very much over his head.

Rep. Marion Berry, who retired from the House earlier this year, described a White House meeting between Obama and conservative Democrats, who warned the president that the measure was unpopular in their districts and asked him why he thought he could do better with health care reform than Bill Clinton had done. “Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me,” Berry quoted Obama as saying.

his trip to asia after the midterm shellacking reminds of me of sally fields in soapdish. she's down and out and sally field's assistant decides to take her to the local mall (to be recognized) to get a hit of celebrity to boost her self esteem.

So, what I sensed in him was not just a restless spirit but somebody with such extraordinary talents that had to be really taxed in order for him to be happy. ... He’s been bored to death his whole life. He’s just too talented to do what ordinary people do.==========

This is what the moms of a certain group of kindergartners always say. The kids who interrupt the teacher, and draw on the walls when nobody is looking, and tear the pages out of books instead of reading, and push kids down on the playground.Little Timmy is just too smart. He isn't being challenged. He is bored.The kids who manage to behave just aren't as smart and bored as Timmy. They are ordinary.

Oh, my lord. This is the way the people have buttered him up his whole life, I'm afraid.

By delivering their assessment of him to a biographer? I guess she figured the word would get back to him.

I mean why does this guy deserve a biographer anyway? What has he done in life?

But maybe, just maybe, this was an accurate assessment of Obama by a hardheaded businesswoman. Why else would she have wasted so much time on him? Why pack up and move to Washington? Not for lack of opportunities in Chicago.

He knows exactly how smart he is. ... He knows how perceptive he is. He knows what a good reader of people he is. And he knows that he has the ability — the extraordinary, uncanny ability — to take a thousand different perspectives, digest them and make sense out of them...

Yakkk. It's like some weird, MST3K-ish cross between hagiography and Good Night, Moon.

I thought it would be funny take that quote and swap out the mention of Barack with the name of a Republican and then slap it on my Facebook wall. But then I would lose 50% of friends - you know, the open and tolerant ones.

Why pack up and move to Washington? Not for lack of opportunities in Chicago.

Well, Michelle's mom went with them to Washington, too. It was a family thing. Michelle worked for Valerie when Obama needed money, and now Valerie works in the White House and flies around on AF1 and has a government paid driver.

The measure of a man is how he deals with failure. Failure does not mean incompetence, it means a willingness to make risks.Barack did experience failure in running for congress, but what else is there? How many risks does the man take? How much fight is there in this dog?

The professor's post suggests something interesting: does anyone in the White House play the Ted Sorensen role? His obituaries made much of his value as inhouse critic for JFK. Michelle no doubt usefully reminds him that his farts still stink, but who provides the constructive criticism?

So, what I sensed in him was not just a restless spirit but somebody with such extraordinary talents that had to be really taxed in order for him to be happy.

1 Then was Obama led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of a tea party.

2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.

3 And when the tempter (a tea party) came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of Jeremiah Wright, command that these stones be made tea crackers.

4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by tea crackers alone, but by every welfare check that proceedeth out of the mouth of the government.

5 Then the tea party taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on the pinnacle of the Washington monument,

6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of Jeremiah Wright, cast thyself down: for it is written, Jeremiah shall give his new black panthers charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a coconut.

7 Obama said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy president.. besides.. I'm not that bored.

8 Again, the tea party taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, (some say Alaska) and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.. (we did just give you a shellacking)

10 Then saith Obama unto them, Get thee hence, tea party: for it is written, Thou shalt worship my Federal Government, and him only shalt thou serve.. besides those governments already gave me a peace price.

11 Then the tea party leaveth him, and, behold, Nancy and the new black panther party (former ACORNS) came and ministered unto him.

Since there are now three of you who misread what I wrote, I'll restate that the Madison life is a great one.

Presumably my snarky shot at plastic counters diluted my effort to sincerely praise the Madison life, at the same time I was noting that the POTUS (and post-POTUS) life is more interesting, influential, and financially lucrative. Not to mention that BHO found his soul mate on the first try.

I'm shocked that Althouse can't see how life is great for BHO. And, I don't understand why some cons can't see that he is responsible for his life--not sycophants, not affirmative action, not inheritance (millions of folks have those things, but they won't be POTUS). For some reason, Althouse and some cons want/need BHO to be less than he is. Why is that?

I think it was Cohen who said on Wednesday or Tuesday that he kept second guessing Obama in the white house wondering if it would have been better with Clinton and that wasn't fair. After all, "Obama was smart and curious".

The only thing is Clinton is smart and knowledgeable.

Everyone has long overstated Obama's intelligence and long ignored his lack of experience. He had done NOTHING before he became President.

Michelle no doubt usefully reminds him that his farts still stink, but who provides the constructive criticism?

THAT is the problem with Obama. And that's from reading the critiques of him from the LEFT. Pretty much, to a person, they note:

1) His belief that he knows more than anyone else in the room.2) That he refuses to take counsel from those who actually DO know more than he does.3) That any criticism of him will get you banished to no-man's land.

Those aren't the hallmarks of a secure intellect. In fact, they are hallmarks of the exact opposite.

That's why I persist in my diagnosis of him as a COMPENSATORY narcissist. His arrogance and self-regard is a transparent mask for the doubt inside of him. That's why he can brook no dissent: it reinforces his own hidden doubts, and if he is not what he pretends to be then who is he?

In fact, if you wanted a textbook illustration of what a compensatory narcissist is, you really couldn't find a better example.

She says he knows how smart he is. I seem to recall history is littered with the wreckage of people who knew how smart they were.

Irene said...

It's quite sad that she said, "I think that he has never really been challenged intellectually" as if that's a good thing.

He has been, but he was always given a pass because it wouldn't be PC to tell him he's a screw up.

Is it true that the only thing that's hard about Harvard is getting into Harvard?

Apparently so. The average grade is a B.

1jpb said...

"How will he deal with the rude affront he received last Tuesday?"

I'd guess that he'll just keep on keepin' on.

The guy is not doing too badly.

Only if not doing too badly is defined by the fact he's spent more in one year than Dubya did in eight, piled up as much debt as all the Presidents before him combined, and has the economy lurching toward another market crash.

He's doing so swell he's in total denial about what happened and has to take a 2 billion dollar trip to Asia to nurse his wounded ego.

WE need Obama to be less than he is, PB&J? YOUR Obama is the one who's thinking, "So what if I led my party and my cause to disaster? I still get to be a rich bigshot!" How can a man possibly be less than that? Without being you, I mean?

1) The chart attributes all of the FY2009 spending to Bush when that's an out-and-out lie. 1/4 of Porkulus got added to FY2009 so that's $200B right there. Plus the 2nd half of TARP Obama signed off on. That's another $350B right there. And let's not forget that Obama voted for the budget he "inherited" in the first place: so he has every bit as much ownership of the previous spending as Bush does.

2) No one ever said it was Obama alone that ran up the deficits. In fact, I seem to remember that pretty much everyone here has pointed out to you over and over again that it was the DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS that has been spending like crazy since they took over for FY2007. Congress writes the budgets; presidents only sign them. So the first finger of blame has to be pointed square at the authors before you blame the publisher.

3) Obama's been in office for 2 years. Bush was in office for 8. Adjust the chart for the additional spending for FY2009 by removing it from Bush's column and adding it to Obama's and how does that comparison look now?

4) What that chart clearly shows is that Democratic Congresses are absolute POISON to the national debt. Reagan and Bush, Sr? Democratic Congresses. Clinton before 1994? Democratic Congress. Bush 2006+? Democratic Congress. Starting to see a pattern here? At some point the sole common denominator starts to just smacking you in the face. How much bludgeoning are you willing to withstand before you admit the obvious?

I meant that as a compliment. Meadehouse is so happy. Imagine if this happiness could have been found sooner.

[Of course there are very bad unintended consequences to this alternative scenario, e.g. regarding kids. So, admittedly, we aren't talking about apples to apples. But Obamahouse seems happy, and that's a good thing that (among other things) probably helps BHO avoid the psychological devastation that Althouse seems to wish on him]

“He” was going to save America. “He” was going to make the seas fall. “He” was going to make such music, conjure harmonies so overwhelming that even America’s enemies would come, drawn like animals to Pan’s pipe at once bewitched and converted. The whole success of the Obama administration hinged around the power of the Him.

Obama was also aided by the MSM's coverage of personality to the point of obsession. Gore a wonkish nerd, Bush a dumb cowboy and Kerry a stiff bore..

Barack has highly developed talents of deception looking like he loves people with that SMILE, but then acting like he only wants crisis and disaster to befall those same marks. A Confidence man secretly despises his marks. And Jarrett's giving some god spirit the credit for Obama's extreme talent for lying,stealing, and destroying does not look like that god could be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

President Obama is the best President we have ever had since JFK. He cannot lose. He cannot be defeated. The GOP cannot touch him. The GOP knows it. The press knows it. The voters know it. Our international partners know it. Everyone knows it.

You all cannot handle the truth. Obama-Biden will defeat no matter what the GOP has in each and every state in the country.

Obama gets tagged with a million metaphors about being a narcissist, but by nothing he has ever said. Someone thinks he is smart so that must mean he is coddled narcissist. That's always a weak tea analysis. I think Obama is moderately smart but sucking hard as being the party leader, and leader of the country more than anything. Detached consensus building, board of director bullshit doesn't inspire anybody, nor should it. If he had the same people voting for him in 08 than he did last Tues the election would have been about even. But the public looks at it as a board of directors of a company that is losing money. He should fire his entire economic team , cut these these fools free, and just start fresh. Distance himself from the wall street giveaway that the public knows they got screwed on, put his party and country on his back and lead. If he can't step aside in 2012 and let someone that can.

As far as the rights beef with him, it's the same old template they use on every other Dem pol. This time its the Dukakis Template. The other worldy figure that just isn't like us!.

"We have this ritual in the morning. They come in my bed, and if Dad isn't there -- because he's too snore-y and stinky, they don't want to ever get into bed with him." --Michelle Obama to Tonya Lewis (Mrs. Spike) Lee, Glamour magazine, October 2007

I don't know if it's all the sycophants. The quote from his book is kind of interesting:In his book “The Audacity of Hope,” he described his feelings of embarrassment and rejection after the 2000 loss.

“No matter how convincingly you attribute the loss to bad timing or bad luck or lack of money — it’s impossible not to feel at some level as if you have been personally repudiated by the entire community, that you don’t quite have what it takes, and that everywhere you go, the word ‘loser’ is flashing through people’s minds,” Obama wrote. “They’re the sorts of feelings that most people haven’t experienced since high school, when the girl you’d been pining over dismissed you with a joke in front of her friends, or you missed a pair of free throws with the big game on the line — the kinds of feelings that most adults wisely organize their lives to avoid.” He is now organizing his life to avoid those feelings. And we're along for the ride...

Irene and Palladian are right -- this quote condemns the man. Real geniuses (like Ben Franklin, or Thomas Edison, or John von Nuemann) don't sit around waiting for someone else to challenge them. They challenge themselves. Got a few minutes? Great -- create a new branch of science, invent something!

“No matter how convincingly you attribute the loss to bad timing or bad luck or lack of money — it’s impossible not to feel at some level as if you have been personally repudiated by the entire community,

Interesting that it's an autobiography and he says "you" instead of "me" or "I".

I have been pretty skeptical about Palin for the last couple years now... but this is a pretty good quality for a leader to have. One of the most important, in fact. That Belmont Club article is excellent.

Jarrett: He knows how perceptive he is. He knows what a good reader of people he is.

Remember those hilarious check out tabloid stories years ago about the aliens among us disguised as politicians (and their groupies)?

Sort of like the Vs... [whatever happened to that show? I thought they renewed it?] The Vs thought they were better at being human than they were. Or than we are.

He knows what a good reader of people he is.

Veritably ROFL.

And how about this howler: I think he came into Springfield with an arrogance..." said Dan Shomon I guess the word confidence and professorial-like is better than arrogance, occasionally a lecturing sort of nature — which I think he’s toned [down]. Over time, he learned to get rid of that where he was, sort of, lecturing.

It's like a gorgeous relative of mine, "I have no friends because people are jealous of me." Or, I don't have a boyfriend, husband, date because men are intimidated by smart women, Yeah, that's it. It's not your fault, they just can't handle your awesomeness!

Jarrett's description of Obama is the description of someone who is deeply insecure and uncertain of his self-worth, whose sense of self is so fragile that it must be rigidly supported by extreme and unrealistic praise, and who cannot tolerate criticism or the thought that he has done something wrong.

"When I met Barack Obama, in our first year of law school, he had already put on his big-time politician act. He just didn’t quite have it polished, and he hadn’t figured out that he needed charm and humor to round out the confidence and intelligence.(...)

"Obama didn’t just share in class -- he pontificated. He knew better than everyone else in the room, including the teachers. Or maybe even he knew he didn’t know, but knew that the leader of the free world had to be able to convince others that he did. Looking back now I can see that he had already decided that he was a future president, and he was working hard at filling that suit." --Jackie Fuchs, Esq.

I would imagine that people at every mental level are bored. And it's not a sin. How could a person not be bored some of the time? Although I will admit that boredom is often the penalty for having run away from challenges.

How boring the world must appear to an orthodox marxist like Barry. After all, he (like Cookie) is privy to the gnostic truths that unlock the meaning of life. Now what?

Obama is a product of Affirmative Action and the culture of never holding our children accountable.

Everyone is a special snowflake. No one loses at T-Ball. Everyone gets the stars on their papers. No one fails or even has to struggle. Can't get the right answer to 2 + 2.....it's OK. You tried and that makes you SPECIAL.

We are raising and have been raising a generation or two of losers with a false sense of entitlement. Obama is just the King of the losers and the most entitled of all.

I read this article earlier and that lady is a piece of work. Crazy hero worship going on. I had never seen those old quotes about lebron james, etc.. Even if you feel that way, wow is it a jerkish thing to say. I agree he doesn't have anywhere near clinton's instincts.

Jarrett doesn't realize it, but she is describing someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder--including his struggle with boredom, which is a form of inner emptiness.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder is not about having a strong or big sense of self--it is about a sense of self that is so weak, brittle, fragile, and uncertain that it must be constantly held together by external praise and cannot tolerate disagreement or criticism.

The point about Barak is that he was perceived as a non-threatening black and road that ticket all the way to the White House. Beneath the benign manner what is there? A shuck and jive grifter. Sometimes the obvious has to be restated lest we forget it.

I've never been too impressed with his intellect, his wisdom or his friends. It takes more than intellect to be president, and he didn't have it and still isn't getting it.

He's been indoctrinated by Alinsky's writings and the patronage of Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright. Even if he had doubts about himself, he has been taught to blame it all on others and hit back twice as hard.

Just before the Civil War, Jefferson Davis did his best to whip up war fever with speeches like this….

“If Mississippi decides to resist the hands that would tarnish her bright star on the National Flag, then I will come at once and pluck that star from the galaxy and place it upon a banner of its own. I will plant it upon the crest of battle, and gathering around me Mississippi’s best and bravest, will welcome the invader to the harvest of death.”

Some thought of this bombast as “soaring rhetoric”. Others were lest impressed. The Vicksburg Whig’s editor denounced the senator’s oration as showing…

“how inordinate vanity, operating upon a moderate intellect, flattered by past successes, may influence its possessor to the most inflated of self-laudation.”

Remind you of anyone? Barry Obama and Jefferson Davis – peas in a pod.

Usually a guy who thinks he's the smartest guy in the room, isn't. He's the smart ass guy at a cocktail party in the corner criticizing everyone as they walk in.... It's funny to his drunk buddies but in the long run it just proves that he's a shallow jerk.

I find this discussion un-acceptable. Who was the smartest guy in inner-city Chicago? BHO. Who was the smartest guy at Harvard and Columbia? BHO. Who is the smartest candidate in any party? BHO.

You all have no thing against the President.

I see you all are just green with envy. He is the POTUS.

You are not.

N.B.: Yes, I know I was wrong with my prediction (again, 224/54). My polling data was bad. My scientific methods was not good. But, it still does not change the fact that the President is the best we have ever had. Deal with it.

I was thinking about the easy way Obama lies to everyone wih no fear of blowback. I realize that he was never called on it before because his audience was ignorant and hearing what they wanted to hear: Blacks were hearing that they would continue getting the bonanza of government unsupervised grants , and get it increased; while the whites were hearing that they would get to slip out of their guilt from the MLK racism charges and end up with a non-threatening black man. Meantime Barack kept right on telling whatever lies would get him promoted by any group. No wonder he still smokes and escapes when he can to hit little white balls as hard as he can. Keeping up all those story lines would wear out anyone. The day he leaves office will be the best day of his life, and also of most middle class American property owners.

a man whose flagship legislation, the Freedom of Choice Act, will impose abortion, including partial-birth abortion, on every state in the Union. It seems the era of Hope is to be inaugurated with a slaughter of the innocents.

David Brooks is a RINO douche, but this is an excellent article. Here's the money quote:

Democrats have, at least temporarily, blown the opportunity they were given to connect with the industrial Midwest. Voters in this region face structural problems, not cyclical ones. Intensely suspicious of government, they are nonetheless casting about for somebody, anybody, who can revive their towns and neighborhoods. Disillusioned with big spending and big debt, they at least want to see their government reflect their values of discipline, order and responsibility. Not only in America, but also in Germany, Sweden, France, Britain and across Europe, working-class voters these days are putting center-right governments in power.

Uber-libs like FLS, Jeremy, AL, garage don't understand that going to these Midwest middle-class people with Marxist rhetoric will NEVER work.

Why would you take one person's impression of him and extrapolate that onto an entire mindset of people you'd like to think share the same impression of the president? Oh, I know why, because you're partisan. You always say that you're not, but you are.

And by the way, you took the phrase "make sense" which means to mull over and think, and extracted the word "sense" out of it in order to question the president's thought-process and to imply that he makes decisions based on knee-jerk reactions. Really? She said "make sense" Althouse, not "sense". She didn't say: "he has a sense" she said, he has to "make sense"; huge difference.

"And I've never met a brilliant person who was ever bored. Boredom is the product of a mediocre and ill-formed mind which requires constant external stimulus to keep it occupied, much like a spoiled, stunted child."

Obama totally dismissed the Republicans during the health care negotiations?

Here, the GOP wanted the Federal government to ride roughshod over the states. But Obama ignored the GOP plan to "buy insurance across state lines" i.e. override individual states' requirements for health insurance plans. If it's good enough for the least demanding state, it should be good enough for Californians or Floridians, right?

Kinda the opposite of what they want Obama to do with Arizona's new immigration policy -- hands off, let Arizona be Arizona.

Look at the people who will be his new opposition. Look at John Boehner:

In 1995, the House was going to finally repeal subsidies for growing tobacco, because an addictive cancer-causing drug didn’t seem like the most deserving recipient of tax-payers’ cash – until Boehner walked the floor of the House handing out checks from tobacco lobbyists to his fellow elected representatives. They changed their minds. The subsidy stayed. Explaining his check-dispensing, Boehner says: “It’s gone on here for a long time.” So get your bids in: the House is open for business.

It's great that Obama is smart and exceptional, because folks like Boehner are exceptional crooks. Obama will need all the self-confidence he can muster. After all, folks like Boehner have so much self-confidence that it boils over into corrupt hubris right there on the floor of the House.

Obama will oppose them, and hopefully he will call out their corruption and their constant lies. Perhaps standing up to this evil can only be done by someone who has been showered with encouragement their whole life.

Well, I've actually looked at information as it relates to economic policy that is readily available and concluded, based on facts, that you can't spend your way out of a recession. Mainly because it has never happened in recorded human history.

Obama can't say the same.

I'm also not into self assured phrases such as the Cambridge police acted stupidly without knowing any facts.

FLS - I'm not saying that the D.C. Republicans have any good ideas about how to fix health care. But the individual mandate is not a solution. Which is why the Democrats got wiped out on Tuesday. You guys just will never get it. Health care is a loser for you guys.

"The professor's post suggests something interesting: does anyone in the White House play the Ted Sorensen role? His obituaries made much of his value as inhouse critic for JFK. Michelle no doubt usefully reminds him that his farts still stink, but who provides the constructive criticism?"

It suddenly strikes me that this is entirely backward. A spouse shouldn't be pointing out stinky farts, failures or other flaws. A spouse should be in the cheerleader role. Someone else, the coach or team mates or someone else should be providing constructive doses of harsh reality.

Obama is neither smart nor exceptional (that is such an over the top adjective to describe him, it induces a little puke in the mouth), but he certainly has more columnists saying he is, and assertions like that than he has actual accomplishments.

I do not think there is a person in this word who doubts how great life is for BHO.

The problem is - it's not supposed to be about how great life is for BHO - it is supposed to be about making life better and keeping life better for AMERICANS. About fostering a healthy economy and a brilliant business climate, about ensuring prosperity for ourselves, future generations and bettering the world - not about punitive policies, theft of wealth, self aggrandizement and degrading your nation's standing in the world.

And it sure isn't about going around calling half your citizens the ENEMY.

He is a dismal failure at this job. There might be jobs for which his "brrrilliance" is suited, he is just a failure at this one. And he isn't surrounding himself with anyone who is any better.

And it sure isn't about going around calling half your citizens the ENEMY.

Technically speaking Republicans are the enemy of Hispanics in America. I only say that because it's apparent to me that 75% of Hispanics support illegal aliens as evidence by their vote for Harry Reid.

Southern tobacco farmers want their subsidies and Midwest farmers want the price of their corn hiked up for ethanol incentives... the corn grown with modern chemical based agriculture and lots and lots of deisel.

Ag subsidies are ag subsidies.

Pork is pork.

And until the Democrats do something about limiting the influence of lobbyists, complaints about it from *that* side of things (unlike, say, Porkbusters) is, wait for it, hypocrisy.

JAY - the issue isn't whether he was passing out "bribe" checks from a legal standard, but ethically he sucks. To normal, middle-class Americans it's sleaze.

The only issue is that he passed out the checks on the House floor, which is tacky and politically stupid. Ethically, it's the exact same thing as passing out checks behind closed doors, which is presumably how everyone else does it.

Bill R said...Remind you of anyone? Barry Obama and Jefferson Davis – peas in a pod.

I would say that Jefferson Davis had a more impressive pre-Confederacy resume than Obama did. The speech you quote is amusingly over-the-top, but that was typical of a lot of Southern oratory at the time.

People always talk about how smart Clinton is, and now Obama. Have either of them ever expressed an original insight of the sort we occasionally got from Daniel Patrick Moynihan? No, all we hear are a stream of liberal cliches.

Clinton and Obama may be intelligent, but there is nothing particularly interesting or original about their thoughts.

When I concluded my attorney was sleaze redoubled, I began appearing pro se. It was not difficult to defeat the three attorneys successively hired by my ex-wife; she forced them to defend positions no one could reasonably take. But coming up before an old and upright judge was daunting for us all. Her attorneys especially dreaded his ability to see through drivel and defiance masked as concern. And I learned I could not (and should not) prevail unless my position was really - not merely by assertion - in the best interests of the kids.

Time and retirement happen to judges as to us all, and I was given a new judge. I learned moments into my first appearance before him that two things and only two things mattered in his court, and neither of them was fact or law. First, that he was the smartest person in the room, and second, that you acknowledged it. What a gift! You can get anything, anything, from the smartest person in the room. It is so easy that there are even moments when you wonder if, perhaps, just perhaps, the smartest person in the room is a dolt. But of course that cannot be true, because they would have realized it long before you had successfully manipulated them.

There are canny and vicious people in caves, camps, boardrooms, and statehouses all over the world who have learned what I learned from the brilliant Judge X. (Judge X, incidentally, gave the courtroom to understand he was extremely knowledgeable about opera, but he never quite recognized that I was humming the triumphal march from Aida when the court sessions would close).

Never take what Julie and Alex/PB&J say at face value. Boehner later admitted the practice was wrong and regretted doing it. They don't mention that Boehner led the fight to end the practice, which was allowable under House rules at the time.

Harry said...

Bill R said...Remind you of anyone? Barry Obama and Jefferson Davis – peas in a pod.

I would say that Jefferson Davis had a more impressive pre-Confederacy resume than Obama did. The speech you quote is amusingly over-the-top, but that was typical of a lot of Southern oratory at the time.

Davis was a West Pointer who led the Mississippi Rifles at Buena Vista and helped turn the tide of battle when his men stopped a Mexican cavalry charge in its tracks and attacked them in an infantry charge, dragging them off their horses and dispatching them with Bowie knives. After the war, he served as Senator from Mississippi and later as Secretary of War where, ironically, he did a great deal to prepare the US army for the Civil War by modernizing the cavalry and infantry.

"Muslims in Mumbai are up in arms against a United States military sniffer dog allegedly with name tag of 'Khan' that has landed in the city as part of President Barack Obama security arrangements." Link